Binoculars

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Want to see the stars? You don’t need an expensive telescope. Maybe just a pair of binoculars (you can get monocular too). You just have to get them set up so you can see images clearly. You can use them to look at the moon, where you will be able to see more of the craters and mare (seas). These are not actually filled with water, but flattened areas amongst the craters. There is the sea of tranquility where Apollo 11 landed for instance. Other things that binoculars make visible include some galaxies and comet Neowise which is gradually fading as it moves away from the sun. It is visible above the western horizon below the star Arcturus (follow the stars of the big dipper handle down till you get to a bright star, then look about halfway between it and the horizon. It is an idea to look in a dark sky area, and allow your eyes to become adapted to the dark for about twenty minutes to allow the pupils of your eyes to open fully.

It’s been cloudy here so I haven’t seen it!

Comet Neowise

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I have not seen it. It keeps being to cloudy. But I just read this at Spaceweather.com so I tried to draw it.

COMET NEOWISE APPROACHES EARTH: Tomorrow night might be your best chance to see Comet NEOWISE for the next 6,800 years. On July 23rd, the comet makes its closest approach to Earth. The fading comet is still visible to the naked eye from dark-sky sites and an easy target for photographers everywhere. Get the full story at Spaceweather.com .

There is then the Persid meteor shower in August. Around the 15th? That might be a good show. Meteor showers are caused by the dust thrown off from comets as they get close to the sun. It’s called out gassing when cometary ice is heated by sunshine and boils off into space taking dust with it. A comets tail is made up of two different parts, the dust tail and an ion tail which is made up of ionised gas. The comets tail always points away from the sun because it is blown by the solar wind.

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